


The Status Quo Will Set You Free

by Zenithyl



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Avengers friendship - Freeform, Complicated Relationships, Do not fuck with Tony Stark, Do not underestimate either Tony or Natasha, Everybody needs the status quo, F/M, Frigga knows best, Implied off-screen torture, Loki doesn't have much luck, Loki is a mess, Merchant of Death Tony Stark, Nick Fury gets along with Tony Stark, Non-Chronological, Non-Linear Narrative, Odin's Bad Parenting, Pepper knows many things, Possibly sociopathic Tony Stark, Protective Jarvis, Rhodey is a good friend, SHIELD tries their best, Snark, Steve Rogers toes the line, Superhero-supervilain relationships, Superhuman politics, Superhuman relationships, Tony Stark Does What He Wants, Tony Stark Doesn't Like Being Handed Things, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Has Issues, Tony Stark is a force of nature, Tony Stark is one vengeful bastard, Tony Stark is terrifying, Villain Tony Stark, broken loki, or does he?, this is an experimental work
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-14
Updated: 2017-03-22
Packaged: 2018-06-08 11:24:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 13,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6852682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zenithyl/pseuds/Zenithyl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Iron Man is quite possibly the world’s only supportive supervillain.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue: The paths they choose

**Author's Note:**

> I started this fic a long while ago, before my previous Marvel one-shot even, but I had to rewrite the entire thing (which I usually never do) after my first attempt didn't turn out so well. This will be an experimental work where I'll be playing with the plotlines and the characters' interactions in the setting I decided on. There is a tentative plot that I've set out, but it still could go anywhere at this point.
> 
> This is also the first time that I've ever made use of a prologue and I hope that I didn't make a mess out of it.  
> Chapter titles are taken from quotes or lyrics, which I will provide in the relevant chapter summary.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Heroes are made by the paths they choose, not the powers they are graced with.” ― Brodi Ashton, _Everneath_

The day that the Chitauri attacked, everything changed for the people of earth.

There had been some strange happenings here and there occasionally, whispers of unusual things beginning to pop up with increasing frequency over the last several decades, but it was the large-scale alien invasion in the middle of New York City that truly marked the start of the new age.

The age of superheroes.

To be fair, both heroes and villains had been around for much longer than that in one form or another, but always hidden from the general public. It was only after the Invasion that they truly came out into the open, became part of normal everyday life.

Superpowered individuals were now becoming increasingly less rare with every month that passed. They were mutants, victims of either accidents or incidents, or people remarkable by virtue of training, talent or skill, and in rare cases were what they were purely because the circumstances had happened to be just _so_.

It was duly noted that the newest generation of villains and heroes came in much more powerful packages, which led to adding the prefix ‘super’ to their labels to reflect the difference. These new generation heroes were no longer simple humans doing good deeds, but overpowered fighters in one way or another that fought the sort of monstrosities that normal law enforcement simply _couldn’t_.

Similarly, the new villains were no mere pests that could be captured, judged, put into prison and held there for as long as needed—at best they were terribly strong people capable of terrifying things and otherwise monstrosities with no regard for others. Sometimes there didn’t seem to be an end to how far these villains could sink, and that made them nightmares to deal with where the public was considered.

Technically, the very first superhero had been ‘born’ several decades earlier, but that had been one single man who’d voluntarily undergone experimental treatment when he participated in Project Rebirth (also known as the Super Soldier Project) and come out the other end with an unparalleled physique and a vastly improved health. Moreover, he’d lasted only a relatively short time before a suicide mission had him disappear from the face of the earth.

This hero, who had been given the codename ‘Captain America’, had set the high standard against which all later heroes were measured, and the appellation ‘superhero’ was originally reserved for him alone—marking him as a hero among heroes. But like such things were wont to do, the meaning behind the title changed with time, and by the time of the Chitauri invasion it had come to denote any exceptional hero several cuts above most, though it had been rarely used and belonged in the realm of the theoretical.

It was a logical step to truly apply the designation to the sort of people that had leaped into action to defend earth against the overwhelming forces of the invaders—and won the battle. The term ‘superheroes’ was first used in a discussion about the events of the invasion on some internet forum with the reasoning that the word ‘heroes’ just wouldn’t cut it. That quickly caught on with other people, its use rapidly spreading throughout the world until it simply stuck with no chance to ever replace it with something else.

The official press conference that eventually followed the ‘Battle of New York’ had seen a lot of interruptions from civilians and journalists alike but had ultimately served its purpose—introducing the superhero team that had beaten the aliens and would continue to protect the world: the Avengers.

The greatest surprise back when the public had been clustered around their televisions worldwide to watch the life footage of the alien invasion of New York City had been when the footage had showed Captain America in action and it was a shock all over again when that conference confirmed his return. The broad-shouldered, blue-eyed, blond-haired man standing front and center on the stage was unmistakably the very same symbol of America that had starred in so many old war-era propaganda movies and comics. He had returned sixty-seven years after going down with that plane that was rumored to have been filled with explosives—and he’d brought a team of other exceptional people to stand with him at the frontlines once more.

Privately, Steven “Steve” Grant Rogers thought that they put too much blind faith in his abilities but had to admit that there was no one else who could fit the role. He’d finally been found in the icy depths of the arctic waters only scant weeks before the events leading up to the invasion had started, had had little to no alimentation yet to the new century he’d woken up in and was even at the time of the conference rather bewildered at how everything had changed in nearly seven decades.

Still, he would do what he must, for the safety and protection of the world and its inhabitants.

To the Captain’s immediate left stood someone just as muscled, blue-eyed and blond-haired, but physically bigger than the leader of the team. The public didn’t know what to make of him—he was obviously not American, was rumored to not even be human, and his codename ‘Thor’ was an obvious reference to the Norse god of thunder the man’s bearing and abilities greatly seemed to resemble—he had a big battle hammer, could fly with it and summon thunder accompanied by the requisite storm—but he was otherwise a complete unknown.

The other Avengers, and the secret government organization behind them, knew better—Thor was an áss, an individual of the extremely long-lived race of æsir, whom were more commonly referred to as asgardians after their home dimension Asgard. He was the actual god of thunder people had worshipped centuries ago, and his full name was Crown Prince Thor Odinson of Asgard.

Thor’s thoughts at that moment were on his beloved adoptive brother Loki—god of lies, chaos and mischief—who’d fallen both literally and metaphorically in the great void of nothingness some time ago, only to surface as the unhinged, insane commander of the Chitauri army, hell-bent on conquering Midgard (the world, he had learned by then, known as Earth to its inhabitants).

On the other side of the Thunderer was stood a nondescript brown-eyed, brown-haired person in a lab coat, who was nervously pushing his glasses back up his nose the entire time. Doctor Robert Bruce Banner was practically passed over in the introductions, but if anything he felt relieved because that was what he’d wanted in the first place.

His other form was what the public were searching for and not finding amongst the Avengers’ ranks; the enormous green muscled giant only known by the name Hulk. The radiation expert’s alter ego was the product of a laboratory experiment with gamma radiation gone horribly wrong, and surfaced every time his scientific other half felt extreme stress, great anger or was in mortal danger.

In the traditional spot of second-in command—namely, at the leader’s right—was the only woman of the team, a red-haired, green-eyed enigmatic beauty whose countenance nevertheless screamed of the kind of danger she owed her code name of ‘Black Widow’ to. Once upon a time, Natasha Romanova had been a Russian assassin, one of many with the same code name, but had eventually broken her life-long training—conditioning—and gone rogue.

SHIELD, the organization behind the Avengers, had folded her into their ranks at some point and she’d been an Agent ever since. Stepping out of the shadows she’d spent her entire life in made her extremely nervous, but Natasha would never admit or show it. The close presence of her partner, who happened to be the last member in the lineup of Avengers, comforted her more than it should.

‘Hawkeye’ was the archer standing at the far right of the row, a man with dirty blond hair and sharp blue eyes. Clinton “Clint” Francis Barton had been a circus performer in his youth before he’d become a top agent of SHIELD, and he was the one who’d recruited the rogue Black Widow for the agency some years back, against the orders for elimination he was under at the time.

His extremely good eyesight, unmatched accuracy and almost superhuman skill with any type of long-range weaponry—not just the bow, although it was his favorite—had earned him the very nickname that became his stage name and was now his code name. Right then, his mind was in extreme disarray, still recovering from the bout of mind control he’d been put under by way of Loki’s magical scepter.

After that day, the codenames of the earth’s main defenders quickly became household names—if only because the real names had been withheld for privacy reasons. The sight of the five people on that stage, still showing clear remnants of injuries sustained in the Battle of New York, had left a deep impression on the minds of the people all over the world.

Soon, more superheroes began coming out of the proverbial woodwork with an ever-increasing frequency that was only surpassed by the rate their opponents, the supervillains, were popping up all over the place like weeds in a neglected backyard. New York City somehow became the world’s biggest hotspot of superhuman activity, boasting a superhero (as well as a supervillain) density unparalleled by any other place on earth.

Speculation in attempts to explain the hows and whys of the superhuman boom ran the gamut from ancient conspiracies to new developments on the evolutionary ladder, but there was one thing that all could agree on:

Any kind of superhuman would inevitably attract the presence of others—once there was one, there would be more.

That piece of knowledge born from experience and observation all around the world was found to be the single golden rule where superhumans were concerned that knew no exceptions.

As for the location of the New York hotspot, the general consensus pointed at the strange energy beam that had heralded the opening of the Chitauri’s portal as a likely cause or at least a heavily contributing factor. _It must be a reason_ , speculators would say time and again, _because it can’t be a coincidence that the world’s highest concentration of superhumans has formed right where that alien energy descended._

Never mind the cause, in just two years, the Avengers would gain a lot of unaffiliated colleagues plus quite a few allied teams (they couldn’t really be called rival teams because saving the world was neither a competition nor a game, and the only things they all raced against were time and villains) the most important locals of which were the scientific astronauts by the name of Fantastic Four and the all-mutant team the X-men.

But that is a story for later.

Up until that point the sequence of events had proceeded, if not normally, then at least somewhat predictably for a group of superheroes—face great challenges, become stronger, band together, save the world—but from there on the complications had started.

The damage costs that had built up over the course of the battle with the Chitauri were astronomical, not to mention that keeping a team of superhumans (and a god) running was a pricy endeavor, what with the costs of reinforced training equipment needed to keep their strength up, housing, feeding its members (of which the majority had higher-than-normal metabolisms or special energy needs) and making sure their weaponry was up to the job of protecting the world.

SHIELD—officially named the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division—had been prepared for dealing with it all, if only due to being responsible for having set up the Avengers, but couldn’t promise anything fancy in the way of food or housing with the hastily-put-together budget being what it was.

Certain people from the upper echelons of SHIELD and related organizations had been planning for years to put together a superhero team to defend against threats just like the aliens that had been the Avengers first job. The ‘Avengers Initiative’ had only existed on paper as something that had still been going through the rounds of bureaucracy—right until the invasion of the extraterrestrial race had forced everyone involved to speed up the formation from ‘maybe someday’ to ‘let’s do this right now’.

For the time being, the five newly-minted superheroes would be crashing at SHIELD HQ—at least until a suitable base of their own could be arranged. The expectation was that it would take a long time before all that was put together, even in its most basic form. For all that SHIELD was the ‘parent’, the Avengers Initiative was not meant to function like one of its numerous teams that could only move when ordered to by their superiors—no, they were to be an independent organization with which intel and resources would be shared, and that could freely make the choice to act or wait without having to obtain permission first.

They weren’t able to be independent right then, but until they got to that point, SHIELD would live up to its acronym and take the Avengers under its wing.

That was the plan—but it wasn’t how it went.

Within the first month of living in SHIELD HQ, a peculiar individual invaded the Avengers’ personal rooms with disturbing ease and a lot of swaggering. He showed up with no forewarning whatsoever and spoke to all of them with an ease as if he broke into high-level security establishments to chat with a group of super-powered individuals on a daily basis.

Three of the Avengers—Bruce, Natasha and Clint—identified the invader immediately as Anthony Edward “Tony” Stark, the engineering genius CEO of Stark Industries and incidentally also the owner of the very famous skyscraper—Stark Tower—that had happened to have been directly underneath the Chitauri portal. The man was rumored to be eccentric and arrogant, but also in the possession of the kind of sheer unparalleled brilliance that only a handful of people on earth came close to—and which none in the world yet surpassed.

He was also the weapon-making, extremely rich capitalist whom was currently single-handedly funding New York’s (mostly Manhattan’s) repairs while the politicians were still up in arms over damage costs, lives lost, the existence of advanced warmonging alien races and matters of who was to blame, who held responsibility and where payment for all that would be coming from.

Captain America’s Vibranium shield happened to be made by the previous Stark genius: Howard Stark. From what the supersoldier could observe in that first meeting, later expanded and confirmed by other information he would get, Tony completely overshadowed his old man’s brilliance.

Stark just started talking and chattering a mile a minute, giving his unprepared audience no chance to get a word in between his rambling. It was an artful monologue that wouldn’t have been misplaced as a political oration if Stark hadn’t been so _flippant_ about every word that came out of his mouth.

Stark Tower was merely one of the many homes this man owned; a technological marvel of a skyscraper situated right in the middle of the part of New York that had become a battlefield during the Chitauri invasion, and the only building of that size in the area to have escaped the battle structurally sound. It was completely self-sufficient in terms of electrical needs due to carrying an industrial-size Arc Reactor that Stark himself had personally adapted for use from his father’s theoretical designs.

The speech smoothly went from one subject to another without pause and Stark had already moved on to another subject—had switched subjects several times in fact—when the implied invitation finally sunk in. In essence, the billionaire offered to pay for the cost and upkeep of the superhero team, plus keeping them supplied them with high-quality gear, tools and equipment. When asked why a weapon mogul like him would fund a peacekeeping initiative, the infuriating man had just shrugged and replied that he occasionally ought to do things to keep up the ‘philanthropist’ part of his _genius billionaire playboy philanthropist_ self-introduction.

Incomprehensible oddities of the infuriating man notwithstanding, the timing was as suspiciously perfect as the details of the offer itself, but neither SHIELD nor the Avengers were in any position to be picky or too critical about the willing sponsor that had conveniently dropped himself into their lap.

Within the week the Avengers moved into the remodeled upper floors of Stark Tower—which gained the alternative name of Avengers Tower as a result—officially attained their intended status as an independent team, and were now essentially rooming with the unpredictable genius himself.

Living in the same building as the genius inventor turned out to be quite… interesting, to say the very least. Tony Stark proved to be a generous host, an even more generous sponsor and a person whom dealt with the general insanity of the bunch of Avengers in his home like it was nothing new and he’d seen it all before.

This easy acceptance went a long way to ease the friction that had been present at the very beginning of living in the Tower and eventually led to the resident heroes counting their billionaire sponsor as a good friend, even going so far as considering him part of the wacky family they had been building, although he wasn’t a member of the Avengers.

Life wasn’t perfect, and there was always a sense of suspicion creeping up on them, but until one year after the invasion the five Avengers thought the circumstances were getting quite close to being as functionally, reasonably perfect as they would ever get…

And then events conspired to reveal the darkness that had been hiding in plain sight, the other face of their biggest supporter.

And if it were any other story this discovery would have marked the end, if not quite the finish line.

But here, it was only the very beginning—the omen foretelling things yet to come.


	2. Success is not final

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” – Winston S. Churchill

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was supposed to be chapter 2... but I somehow finished it before chapter 1. As this story will not be chronological anyway I decided that the order doesn't matter. Therefore, this here is the newly dubbed first chapter.
> 
> Note that Nick Fury appears here and that I haven't had the pleasure of writing about this foul-tempered director before. If his habitual cursing here is odd in some form; that's probably why. Also, he sure loves his dramatic speeches--just like certain other Marvel characters that we know...

“Sir, were you aware of Tony’s… activities on the side?”

That was one way to put it, and it really shouldn’t have surprised Nick that Captain Rogers would choose to bring it up with such care for the words used. He’d been waiting for this call for close to a year but that didn’t detract from the importance of the matter or the need to handle it with a delicate touch that he only ever reserved for extremely rare cases of utmost gravity.

Needless to say, this was one of them.

“I am.” No reason to lie—the outcome would only ever be negative if he did.

Predictively, the captain’s facial expression did not change much in response—the soldier must have suspected or at least been prepared for the possibility. That was good.

Nick could work with that.

Through clenched jaws that were clearly visible in the high definition video feed the captain growled at him in barely restrained frustration. “Why?”

There were no more words needed between them. _Why weren’t we told?_

Clasping his hands behind his back while straightening his already upright position even more, Nick strode closer to the screen of the communications room from where he had taken this video call over the highly secure direct line dedicated to the Avengers.

“You might not be aware, captain Rogers,” he began carefully, “but Stark has always been known to SHIELD as a very dangerous individual. He stands too close to this organization through his late father’s contribution of the founding and his company supplies most of the government and agencies with tech—all without being an agent or in any way taking part in the activities of SHIELD or any of the other organizations.”

Rogers nodded in understanding. Nick made a few more steps, now to the side, wishing to pace but not allowing himself to.

“Stark is one of those people who never had it in him to be ordinary. You and I can both relate to that.” Nick allowed himself a grim smile at seeing the captain’s reluctant agreement written over the man’s face. He made to step to the other side but decided not to. “As you know, it takes a special kind of individual to become a hero and it is a fine line that separates them from a villain.”

The man in the screen still said nothing, so Nick continued.

“As Stark aged, it became more and more clear that he had the potential to be either a great man or a terrible man.” A long look was shared between both military men. “Or both.”

Finally, Rogers spoke up.

“With all due respect, Director, this does not answer my question.”

Nick chuckled darkly without an ounce of humor.

“You were always meant to know, captain. You have the qualifications and sufficient clearance for this information.”

“Then why wasn’t I informed before now, sir?”

“I planned to,” Nick admitted, “but Stark’s behavior made me decide to wait.” At Rogers’ questioning look he elaborated—a bit. “Haven’t you realized by now? It pains me to admit it, but that son of a gun is very good at whatever he does, including hiding all evidence of his activities and acting like fuckin’ nothing at all has happened that he knows of.”

The captain frowned in response, with a look that Nick had come to recognize as the supersoldier’s thinking face. The Director said nothing more for the moment, letting the other man put the pieces together on his own.

“Tony has been a supervillain since before the forming of the Avengers…” the soldier murmured, “and he was fully aware of our jobs, considering that he actually offered to sponsor us—” In a flash, the head full of shock-blond hair whips up to look at Nick with wide eyes through the video feed.

“But he hasn’t made a move,” Rogers said in a vague semblance of awe. “Tony hasn’t sabotaged our missions, or killed us in our sleep. He hasn’t even been trying to recruit us.”

“Exactly.” Nick smiled grimly. “Stark is perfectly capable of disposing of you whenever he feels like it, but for whatever reason is at play, he’s not interested in ridding himself of the Avengers.”

“You noticed.” The captain’s voice sounded almost accusing, were it not for the wonder in his tone. “Director, where you waiting for the moment Tony would make a move, or reveal himself?”

“Not precisely. I have been watching for that motherfucker’s tells since the very beginning, but he hasn’t been giving any. And yet, Stark has made it clear to me personally on multiple occasions that he knows that we are watching—and he doesn’t care.”

Nick took the time to stare the captain down with his patented ‘do I have to spell it out for you, you fucking idiot’ stare, a bit toned down only because of the circumstances. When it seemed there was still nothing forthcoming, he sighed, and forced himself to say it.

“Captain, Stark… _likes_ you motherfuckers. I swear to god, I don’t know why, but he is _fond_ of you all to an extent that should be impossible.” Abandoning propriety entirely at this point, Nick closed his eyes momentarily—not that the one behind his eyepatch was visible—and harshly rubbed at the bridge of his nose before continuing. “This is a prime opportunity that we can’t afford to waste. Remaining in close contact and on good terms with Stark could mean the difference for a lot of innocents who would otherwise die at Iron Man’s hands.”

“You want us to—what, convince him to give up on his villainy?”

Deeming that since he’d already given in to his urges earlier there was no need to hold off on expressing the rest as well, Nick audibly huffed in frustration and a tiny bit of disbelief.

“I don’t believe in miracles. Just getting that bastard to sometimes lay off from wreaking havoc would fuckin’ help. Be his friends, earn his trust, get some measure of influence on his decisions, exchange friendship bracelets for all that I care—as long as the result is positive overall and you don’t compromise yourselves I don’t give a shit what you do. You’re free to handle it however you think is best— _just don’t fuck this up_ , goddammit, because the damned world may not exist long enough to give you another try.”

On the other side of the video feed, Rogers saluted like a man being sent on a mission.

“Sir, yes sir,” sounded crisply through the speakers.

That reaction was by far the best of all the possibilities, but Nick should have known that as soon as he’d turned his back the captain would ask a final question that was tricky as all hell to answer.

“Director, if Tony was under watch from the very beginning, how could he have become… like that?”

Ah, back to the careful phrasing, was it? It did not make a lick of difference, but Nick could find some appreciation for the consideration Rogers managed to give such a heavy subject, especially one that at its core concerned an especially painful failure of SHIELD’s.

With closed eyes and a heavy heart, Nick answered.

“Stark had been on the cusp for quite some time, though it was always unknown what direction he would go in; whether he would be a hero or a villain. Afghanistan was the _one_ time that SHIELD lost sight of him and as our damned luck would have it, that kidnapping was the fucking final straw.”

Nick partially turned to give the silent image of the attentively listening captain Rogers an intense look over his own leather-clad shoulder.

“The truth is, captain—even now we still don’t know what the fuck happened in the months Stark was held captive in the middle of that goddamned sand trap. Something went wrong the exact moment that he made the transition—and the fact of the matter is that when it happened we _weren’t there_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> By the way, should supersoldier be spelled with a space? I try to be consistent with the use of super (as in superhero, supervillain, superhuman and superpowered), but is this correct? Anyway, I'd appreciate it if someone could explain what the correct spelling is.


	3. There are no coincidences

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “There are no coincidences in life. What person that wandered in and out of your life was there for some purpose, even if they caused you harm. …” – Shannon L. Alder

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yet another character that I haven't had written about before appears here--be warned. This is also the very chapter meant to be numbered 1 that got pushed back in favor of releasing what has now become the previous chapter. While I meant to have this be Bruce's point of view, it ended up being much less about his thoughts than I had planned. Hope you will all still like it regardless.  
> Hints of villain!Tony are showing through from here on out...
> 
> EDIT: Thanks to commenter _KahunaBurger_ I was alerted to the fact that I forgot to mention the Arc Reactor in this chapter. This oversight has now been fixed. I also did a bit of minor editing beyond that but none of it has impact on the events of the story. I wonder if someone who has read both versions of this chapter can pick out what has been added or tweaked?

When JARVIS spoke up, Doctor Bruce Banner immediately put his tools aside to pay attention to the AI’s voice. The words appeared to originate from somewhere above his head, and made the doctor look upwards in a sort of workable substitution for looking someone in the eye, despite knowing that the digital entity did neither live in the ceiling nor had any use for such social cues.

“Dr. Banner, I believe Sir is in urgent need of your medical knowledge.”

Bruce immediately ran for the medical kit stored in his labs before the British-accented voice even got to the end of the sentence. For Tony to voluntarily call for medical aid nothing short of a personal apocalypse would need to have happened and JARVIS calling for help on his creator’s behalf was only a few steps below that.

If it meant that the lot of his fellow superheroes and their wayward supervillain got at least moderately decent medical care when they needed it, Bruce really wasn’t all that bothered with his role of residential medic—though he would _never_ admit it out loud. Still, it _really_ wasn’t his field and there was only so much he could do to treat injuries with his limited knowledge, so Bruce was always fearful of the possibility that _this time_ would be when it was _not enough_.

“Sir can be found at the launching pad,” JARVIS said then, anticipating Bruce’s question before it could be voiced. In lieu of a verbal response, the doctor hurried to enter the elevator and left it to the AI to move it up to the relevant floor.

The first thing the doctor saw was Steve, who’d apparently been called mere moments behind Bruce with a similar request for assistance—the other man rushing out the other elevator with as much haste as he only ever showed in emergencies. The next part was the _bloody_ trail originating from the launching pad outside and leading inside, still as scarlet as it would be when properly inside someone’s veins, jarringly bright against the marble floor.

Then they saw Tony lying in a pool of blood at the end of the trail, with pieces of his current Iron Man-armor missing from his person and instead scattered along the last ten feet of the line of blood. His helmet was off, as was most of the breastplate and he’d lost both boots somewhere, but Tony still wore one gauntlet, what was left of the backplate and various other random armor parts.

Even with the thick coating of blood and grime it was clear to see that his suit was heavily damaged to the point where it was less protection and more a safety hazard to wear. The Arc Reactor was not visible to Bruce, considering that Tony laid more-or-less flat on his belly, but if the doctor was a betting man he would bet that its glow would be dull right now.

Tony seemed not to be bothering with avoiding further injury, if the way he was still fighting to get out of the suit was any indication. Bruce was not even surprised that the severe blood loss didn’t appear to faze his labmate, used as he was to the billionaire’s stubborn pride and independence.

In his peripheral vision Bruce saw that the captain was worriedly hovering over their mutual friend, uncertain whether touch would be welcomed or rejected, and that spurred the doctor into action.

“Tony,” he urged the struggling genius on the ground. “Stop moving—you’ve lost too much blood.”

The doctor knelt down next to his patient, uncaring of the blood that immediately started to soak through his tattered jeans, motioning the other hero to help strip their frenemy of the rest of the armor. Some parts came off without much difficulty—which were mostly the intact pieces, unsurprisingly—but there were several heavily deformed remnants that required Steve’s enhanced strength to tear them off the engineer’s body without further breaking something vital beneath.

The process revealed deep wounds that hadn’t even begun to scab over yet, and released yet more blood from their depths in truly worrying amounts. Bruce did what he could to stem the bleeding, to keep the blood inside the body, while in the back of his head a part of him was still panicking over the situation. He could only spare a brief glance to verify the Reactor’s continued functioning—dulled but not out; just as he’d suspected—in between everything else.

Somewhere halfway through the doctor’s proceedings Tony fell still, _too still_ for the usually hyperactive engineer, but Bruce couldn’t afford to pay attention beyond the immediate danger to the engineer’s life. He rushed his patient to the private infirmary of the Tower, where the physicist proceeded to hook the mechanic up to a great number of machinery designed for medical support before seeing to getting the wounds _stay_ closed.

Steve—whom had helped carry the load of armored man—had to be threatened with being bodily thrown out of the infirmary before the doctor finally got him to leave, and even then Bruce fully expected that the soldier would call an immediate Avengers meeting with the location set as Tony’s bedside. He was, therefore, not at all disappointed when it took only fifteen minutes until his colleagues descended on the infirmary in what appeared to be near-panic to the uninitiated but was actually a well-trained response to any sort of threatening situation.

By then, Bruce was done with stitching and taping the unconscious billionaire back together—the end result now looked like Tony had fought against a giant paper shredder rather than giving the impression of having been mauled by multiple predators out for blood.

“What do we know?” demanded Steve, ever the leader and concerned friend seamlessly rolled into one harmonious whole. The muscled blond was visibly vibrating with suppressed energy next to the bed. Bruce knew that if there’d been space in this infirmary room full of machinery and visitors, Steve would’ve been pacing.

All heads turned as one towards the doctor for answers, but there wasn’t much the physicist could give them.

“Many open wounds, recently incurred. The majority are from blunt force trauma applied with extreme force. I’ve found among them several lacerations in the torso area, which I think are the result of torn plating from the armor, and massive abrasions alongside back, neck and shoulders. Other damage includes a lot of cracked bones, but fortunately none of them are broken.

The Arc Reactor is banged up, but still functioning, though it too has been hit with tremendous force, which has hammered the entire casing further into Tony’s chest cavity. Only the outrageous strengthened structural defenses of the armor dedicated to protecting the central Arc Reactor have prevented the relatively minor internal bleeding from ending up lethal. In short, Tony’s paranoia has saved him, _again_.”

The other members were completely silent as they listen to what Bruce said, even as the hunched-over man fidgeted with his glasses in nervosity and nearly mumbled the conclusion he tacked on at the end.

“As for the perpetrator, I’d say somebody, or several somebodies, have attacked Tony with the intent to kill him, or at least do serious harm.”

“They must have been superhuman,” observed Natasha with a sharp gaze. “Because I can’t see Stark ever getting beaten by a civilian, the military wouldn’t _dare_ touch him, and from what I can see there’s no sign that there was advanced technology involved, experimental or otherwise.”

Though it narrowed the choices down some, it didn’t help much in determining who could have been involved. Many heroes and villains alike would love to take Iron Man down a peg, after all. But all the same, there were only a few people worldwide insane or stupid enough to actually take the risk despite the _severe_ consequences that would follow regardless of whether they actually succeeded.

For the time being, the villainous engineer would spend all his time sleeping, and in a sense it was fortunate that the man would not be awake to protest. Tony was notorious for evading medical treatment, even amongst the Avengers—whose members held similar inclinations to varying degrees—because they’ve seen enough times that their landlord apparently loathed hospitals, most medics and being forced to suffer through either.

As long as the mechanic was still bodily able to escape, you could safely bet everything you owned that he would do it, and then retreat to a safe place—read: the closest workshop, because all of Tony’s residences and hideouts came with one, no matter how small—to lick his wounds in private.

Being unconscious would at least keep the man lying in bed for a while, preventing him from prematurely exiting the infirmary and also decreasing the risk of the stubborn man tearing his stitches in an incinerating rage when the wounds had yet to properly heal.

Steve was a step ahead of the rest when he seemingly addressed his next question to the ceiling. “JARVIS, what is the status on the Iron Man armor Tony was wearing?”

“The remains of the mark XXXII have been collected and stored in Sir’s workshop to await analyzation and either repairs or demolition,” answered the AI unerringly with his customary politeness. “I am afraid to say that I cannot provide further information as per my protocols.”

“That’s fine, JARVIS. We understand,” answered the captain kindly.

“Can you tell us where Stark was at during the attack?” Natasha interjected carefully. “Any sort of information that you can provide would be helpful.”

It was always risky ground when either party asked after the other’s plans or whereabouts, whether past or future, due to the fact that any information given could potentially be used against them. In the very first days after Tony’s secret had come out this had led to a great many conflicts when neither party had felt safe sharing this part of themselves with the other, then wavering between which gradation of information to give, until all of them had finally settled on a somewhat comfortable balance of what to tell, what could be asked and what to leave alone.

Natasha was fully aware that she was taking a great risk with her words, that just by posing the question she was endangering the fragile truce that all residents of the Tower’s upper floors had painstakingly established, but she likely felt that the occasion warranted it just this once—or she wouldn’t have tried at all.

A few seconds worth of tense silence left the group holding their breath, hoping and in some cases praying for a positive outcome—and then JARVIS acceded on the grounds that the current exceptional circumstances warranted a looser interpretation of the usual rules.

Natasha and Clint, as the resident spies, noted down all that the AI gave them on Tony’s locations of the last twenty-four hours and left soon after to hunt for clues in the underbelly of society. Bruce had hope that they would find something of use, but it was highly doubtful that they could take action to deal with the parties involved with the attack before the situation solved itself in the usual violent way.

Unless Tony chose to inform them of the identity of his attacker(s), there was little else the Avengers could do besides taking care of their severely wounded friend. A task that they took very seriously—which was why by the time Tony woke up he was amidst the entirety of the Avengers’ roster, sans the off-world Thor, camped out in the infirmary.

Tony Stark did not do anything by halves, including the process known as waking up from rest—regardless of whether said rest was voluntary or not. His brain went from dead to the world to running on all cylinders in a frightening short moment, which had more than once freaked out any of the other inhabitants of the Tower before they got used to it out of self-preservation. Bruce could once again confirm that being critically injured did not change that procedure when extremely intelligent eyes snapped open in a flash, functionally alert in about a second later.

While he went to do all the standard health checks for the situation with lightning speed before his patient could think to forbid him, the doctor also idly took note of the blue eyes still sneakily blinking the last bit of sleep away. The engineer had the peculiar habit of leaving them guessing what color his eyes were supposed to be, showing up with brown eyes sometimes and having them blue during other days. Occasionally, he changed it up with an unnatural jet-black or other shades of brown and blue that differed from the usual, but it nevertheless always remained a mystery which color was real. Was it deep brown, bright blue or possibly that inky black of the darkest nights that unnerved them all?

Tony sat up so fast then that Bruce—and Steve also, he saw from the corner of his eye—reflexively cringed in sympathy. The billionaire then needed to be caught when the same movement made him overbalance and led him to topple over the edge of the bed. Clint happened to be standing the closest, so the archer was the one to prevent Tony from reaching the floor and then put the mechanic back onto the infirmary bed.

“Woah! Not so fast, buddy,” was the sniper’s sarcastic remark. “I know you’re in a hurry to make friends with the floor, and the walls, and the door, but you have some fussing to endure first.”

Tony glowered at the words, making himself appear full of life despite his damaged appearance and the weakness associated with the current location. When Clint remained unruffled by the death glare, the engineer went on to encompass them all as targets only to once again stay bereft of any reaction whatsoever.

Bruce hurried to intervene before the situation would escalate and quickly caught his injured friend’s interest by describing the latest project that was currently bubbling away in his lab. As expected, Tony left everyone around him alone in favor of discussing Science (capital required when in that particular mad scientist’s presence) with as much energy as he managed to spare in his less-than-optimal condition.

The game of keep-Tony-entertained-enough-to-stay-put continued for hours, with all the Avengers taking turns to keep up the steady stream of chattering, nagging, gossiping, cajoling, playing and mothering/fathering/brothering/sistering/whatever you are supposed to call it. And let there be no mistake—it truly was and took a team-effort to deal with a Tony Stark who didn’t want to stay where he was ordered to be, even if it was for the sake of his own health.

Clint—once he was back from his preliminary scouting—even jokingly called it a perfect team-bonding exercise out of Tony’s earshot, “except this time, we’re not gonna have to worry about having to break off our session, cap. What task could possibly have a higher priority on the superhero scale of world-saving than ‘battling our archnemesis’?”

“Make a list if you want to find out,” Natasha suggested, an amused glint in her eyes. “Prioritize the lot of them. And let’s see if there really is anything on there that ends up in a higher spot.” Of course, Tony somehow got wind of the concept only scant minutes later and excitedly set JARVIS to record his rapid-fire suggestions to compile into a list of items that the resident heroes would have to sort in the correct order later. The resident spy’s sly smile suggested that a deliberate act of hers had contributed to the engineer’s discovery, but there was no proof whatsoever—neither she nor their villain were talking.

When dinnertime came around, Tony had had visits from an upset-but-unsurprised Pepper Potts, a harried-looking Happy Hogan and an exasperated-yet-fondly-worried Lieutenant-Colonel Rhodes by way of video calling from the middle of a war zone half a world away. It took Natasha, whom out all of the Avengers came closest (where the definition of ‘closest’ was actually ‘really not close at all’) in matching Pepper’s effective methods of bullying Tony into complying, to stand threateningly next to the friendly villain’s bed, but they managed to get a somewhat good amount of proper food into him (as in neither caffeinated nor in liquid form)—a result that all heroes took as a big win.

They didn’t expect to get any more visitors for Tony that day, aside from when the frantic bots down in the engineer’s lab would finally manage to escape their brother’s—JARVIS’—metaphorical clutches, which was why the sudden unannounced addition of an unknown person in the room caused what could best be described as a ‘reversed stampede’ of the variety ‘attack’.

The interloper at first sight appeared to be yet another member of the spandex brigade—one of Tony’s general terms for heroes—with the colors of black and red all over his full-body suit, but there were plenty of villains out and about in the world that also dressed themselves like that, so it wasn’t in any way foolproof to be sure of the stranger’s allegiance.

“Hi there!” the male called in an obnoxiously cheerful voice, while also spreading his arms wide in an exaggerated welcoming gesture. “Itza me, Deadpool! D’you miss me, my darlin’?”

“How could I?” Tony answered quasi-seriously without so much as missing a beat. “You never give me a chance to forget, let alone miss your ugly mug.”

The odd visitor dramatically clutched at his heart with a cry of “How hurtful, you’re breaking my poor lil’ tender heart!”

A scoff from the billionaire was the only reaction it garnered, but that didn’t seem to bother the chatty person.

“I don’t have a lotta time, really, got a date with my fans later—y’know, the burden of being popular and all—and by the way, I’m still lobbying for another movie to star in, it’s just not fair that you get to have three and then get to hijack at least five more on to top of that. And that’s me not even getting started on the cameos. Oh, woe is me!”

None of it was making any sense, but Tony remained unperturbed under the onslaught of words. There was some more rambling from the mouthy guy while he approached the bed, walking past the horde of confused Avengers standing around not knowing what to do, before seemingly moving on to business in the next second.

A bundle of papers was somehow pulled out from somewhere underneath the red and black spandex uniform, then dropped into Tony’s lap with the distinct sound of quality paper slapping onto fabric-covered flesh.

“Ah, before I forget,” the evil genius murmured distractedly. Tony pointed at the rabble of heroes, then to the unlikely messenger.

“Avengers, Deadpool.”

He repeated the gesture in reverse.

“Deadpool, Avengers. Have fun socializing kiddies, and remember not to spill blood on the carpet—it’s so hard to get out.”

“Wade Wilson, people, also known as the Merc with a Mouth~” singsonged the newly introduced visitor, who was apparently the infamously insane mercenary known for never staying dead just as much as for never shutting up.

With a short out-of-place clearing of his throat, Deadpool then went on to the actual business with a decent amount of seriousness that no one familiar with the man’s imago had quite expected of him, which left the Avengers gaping once more at the scene unfolding by the bed.

“In short, Mr. Kingpin sends his well-wishes, plus a formal apology that he wasn’t able to intercept the attack and a free contract hit for when you get down to the revenge part.”

“What the hell is this?” a slightly pale-faced Clint asked as the archer carefully held up one of the documents from the pile between a thumb and forefinger in an attempt to read what it said.

Deadpool shrugged. “Basically, it’s the mobster version of ‘it wasn’t me’ coupled with ‘please don’t hurt me’ from a number of bigwigs in the business. Speaking of, there’s also another few pages of signatures in there that I have to deliver in the name of New York’s underworld. I’d have more, but the other territories can’t move quite that fast.”

“What’s the news on your friend, Wilson?” Tony inquired calmly while he leafed through another part of the papers. “You know; Mr. Stabbing-with-Pointy-Things? I thought he’d be here first thing to beg for his kicks.”

A snort. “Lester? He’s out of town right now. It’s the only reason he’s not scratching at your door right this minute.”

Tony lifted an eyebrow as he threw the mercenary a knowing look. “A job?”

“A job,” confirmed Deadpool. “Same old, same old.”

“Lemme know when he’s back. I might’ve something for him by then.”

Underneath the black-and-red mask the professional killer was surely smiling his creepy grin again, only audible in the tone of his sarcasm. “Sure thing, Mr. Stark, Sir.”

As soon as de insane messenger had left, which was several hours later, Tony started drooping and then dropped off into sleep very quickly. Bruce let out a breath of relief that their villain couldn’t put up a fight this time and had gone to sleep on his own—which meant that they didn’t have to fight the manic inventor for it to happen.

And as the group of Avengers sat vigil at Tony Stark’s sickbed, pondering the implications of the ‘free hit’, the pile of signatures and some other details that either of the villains had dropped during the conversation, they were once more struck with the surreality of their everyday life. All of them knew that Iron Man was a big-shot in the underworld, but it was not a subject that one could just bring up in polite conversation, so it was more akin to matters of common knowledge—everybody knew but most simply never experienced it for themselves.

This matter too, was something the Avengers had nothing to do with, other than being honor-bound to see the perpetrators jailed instead of viciously _shredded_ to itty-bitty pieces.

They would watch and wait, poised to strike the moment an opportunity arose—to hopefully quell the stormy waters _before_ the madness, murder and mayhem descended, before bloody rain would fall from the sky.

Because if anything was certain, it was that Tony Stark’s upcoming answer for his injuries would be unpleasant for everyone caught in its path, while it would be nothing short of _horrifying_ for the intended recipient. The person in question could count themselves ‘lucky’ if they managed to make the two-week mark after everything was said and done.

Let it be said that supervillains, as a rule, never bothered with meting out proportional punishment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...And that's the end for now. While I will come back to the aftermath at some point, be warned that I'm going to jump to yet another part of the timeline for the next chapter. It'll take a while before I get back to elaborate on this part of the plot.
> 
> If there's stuff you want to see in this story (or holes that you want to see filled) write it up in a comment and I'll have a look. I can't make any promises regarding whether I will actually incorporate the things suggested/asked/requested, but that's probably a given.


	4. It's all about us

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “They say  
> They don't trust  
> You, me, we, us  
> So we'll fall  
> If we must  
> Cause it's you, me  
> And it's all about  
> It's all about  
> It's all about us”  
> – t.A.T.u, It’s all about us

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There we go, I've got a new chapter for you all to read and a fix to the previous chapter to check. It isn't neccesary to re-read the entire page (you are allowed to, of course) but I'd still advise to have a look at the bits I've added. Repeatedly search (ctrl+f) the word "reactor" on the page and you should find the new sentences easily.
> 
> We get a better picture of Tony's villainous side here, and there's more to come. I finally managed to iron out some crucial details so there's gonna be more plot in our future too. Have fun with this in the meantime.

Just once, Steve had asked Tony why he’d become a supervillain.

“Whyever would you ask me that?” the man had replied mockingly, a single eyebrow raised on the handsome face to further punctuate the skepticism rolling off his figure. “You can’t honestly believe that supervillainy is a career choice you can make right about, say, as soon as you’re legal to drink.”

“I didn’t mean it like that!” Steve had hastened to emphasize, gesturing wildly with his hands in an attempt to visualize that he truly hadn’t thought it’d be taken that way. All the same, the soldier had been painfully aware that he looked more panicked than anything while waving like that, but he hadn’t been able to stop the automatic reaction he was more than halfway in.

Eventually, Steve had started speaking again, continuing to struggle with verbalizing the words that had been bouncing around in his head for far too long: “Seriously, Tony, I meant— Why did you? Why are you still a villain? What do you get out of it?”

The engineer had worn a faint smile throughout the conversation so far, and it had become a smirk at that point. “Why, Steve?” the billionaire had purred at him in the familiar display of charm and sex-appeal that never failed to unnerve Steve even as it set all the superhero’s nerves alight. “Did I hear correctly that you are asking me what the _appeal_ is of supervillainy?”

“Just what part appeals to _you_ ,” the chronologically older man had hastened to clarify.

“Hmmm…” Tony had hummed aloud in fake pondering. “You know, they say that’s bad form to mix business and pleasure,” he had whispered breezily—as if he had instead been remarking on the latest _antics_ of some _cute baby heroes_ —before giving Steve a lascivious, almost predatory leer that had made the hero distinctly feel like prey in front of a hunter. Steve hadn’t even been sure whether it had felt more likely that Tony was planning to eat him or would simply _eat_ him.

Tony, the bastard, had visibly taken a lot of fun out of unnerving the Avengers’ leader with his behavior. He had enunciated every single syllable clearly as he finished his statement with a seductive lilt at the end: “I, however, take great satisfaction in mixing my _work_ and my _pleasure_.”

That short conversation had felt like it had shaved years off of Steve’s life expectancy and should have given him a heart attack right about the middle of it, but somehow he couldn’t shake the feeling that Tony _had_ said something important, given a proper answer, and it was just hidden somewhere in-between the rest of the words.

Nevertheless, Steve had not dared to ask again.

And even then, it still didn’t stop him from spending many a free moment to think on it.

Back in the Days of Ignorance (name including capital letters courtesy of Clint), the Captain had long wondered why SHIELD had never considered Tony for Avengers membership, starting from when he’d once been led around the workshop where the genius engineer spent most of his time creating the most wonderful and deadly things one would ever see.

The agency had never given him an actual answer when he had brought it up, but that didn’t matter since Steve—or more precisely; the Avengers as a whole—had stumbled across the answer on their own about a year into their acquaintance with Tony.

To this day, the supersoldier had no idea whether the entire thing had been orchestrated, and if so by whom, but he was damned glad about the unexpectedly peaceful circumstances under which the discovery had happened. Ever since undergoing the Vita-Ray treatment anything that could be classified as peaceful had rapidly become a scarce commodity in his life so he wasn’t about to look that particular gift horse in the mouth too much.

Instead, Steve had focused on the matter of Tony’s supervillain status and hadn’t wasted any time to check with SHIELD’s directory Nick Fury whether the master spy knew—and why had part of the soldier _ever_ assumed the director might not? The direct inquiry did bring up some interesting intel though, so it wasn’t completely useless after all.

Of course, the agency had known all along, but the reasons given for not informing the Avengers were quite interesting, really.  According to SHIELD’s protocols on this topic, all the members simply hadn’t had reason to know one way or another.

Natasha and Clint, while both SHIELD agents—spy and sniper respectively—hadn’t needed the information for any of their missions thus far, and neither Bruce nor Thor had been heroes before the rushed formation of the team and had therefore not been entitled to the knowledge. Steve would have been told eventually because of his long-establish hero status, but Fury had admitted that he had deliberately delayed relaying the information for the sake of the director’s curiosity.

All those cases of ‘we knew but didn’t tell you’ aside, the fact of the matter was that Tony had very much been aware of whom they were when the man had come to tell the group that he had floors with their names on them.

Even now Steve still had no idea why Tony, a highly competent supervillain, had thought inviting a newly formed superhero team into his own home was a good idea. One would think it was for the purpose of corrupting the fledgling heroes to a path of villainy or to simply get rid of them before they could grow strong enough to be dangerous, but nothing the man had done so far—even in the time following the reveal—had so much as hinted at that being his goal. In fact, anything he did was nearly always the opposite of what one would expect.

The supersoldier had come to know Tony (the civilian) as being the kind of person filled with boundless energy and childlike curiosity, prone to poking things with a metaphorical stick just to see what would happen. In light of that knowledge, Steve had been forced to conclude that the villain apparently genuinely liked their company—improbable as it sounded.

It was just one more mystery in the seemingly endless list that concerned the paradoxical man known as Tony Stark. Still, despite the chaos and headache-inducing complications Tony’s presence brought along, Steve was glad he got to know Tony Stark and Iron Man separately before finding out they were one and the same. What he had gained from the friendship with arguably the most dangerous supervillain in the world could not be expressed in coinage—it was priceless, its value possibly only fully appreciated by Steve alone.

How could he _not_ appreciate the chance to obtain unbiased—or at least less biased—information on what made villains tick, to hear the other side of heroes’ involvements?

Steve would now even go as far as saying that their amiable relationship with Tony Stark was worth all the problems it brought, not even counting the weapons and other information they managed to haggle out of Tony sometimes—or the friendship itself.

Over time an unspoken agreement had been formed between the team of heroes and their villainous landlord; the Tower was considered neutral ground and there would be no fighting within, but meeting outside while ‘at work’ was business as usual. Work could be brought inside, but not continued.

It worked for all of them, and allowed their friendships to continue without mayor issues.

This was why it was possible for any of the Avengers return to the Tower from fighting Iron Man, be welcomed back by Tony, and not feeling the need to attack—aside from the occasional knee-jerk reaction when either party startled the other, that is.

The ding of the elevator doors opening at his destination woke Steve from his mind’s wanderings down memory lane. When stepped foot on the Avengers' common floor, he was met by the familiar sight of Tony Stark sitting comfortably in one of the sofas, holding some alcoholic drink in one hand and one of the uncountable Starkpads lying around the Tower in the other.

Plopping down heavily in his preferred loveseat, Steve threw his friend a tiredly exasperated look before unceremoniously cutting to the chase right away.

“Must you hit that hard, Tony? Clint’s in medical because of that shot you got into him at the end.”

The genius shrugged in reply, waving his glass around in a looping pattern that nearly made Steve dizzy and yet did not spill a drop of the liquid contents.

“Hey, you know that all bets are off when I’m in the suit, Cap.”

“Doesn’t mean that I don’t wish you’d have some more compassion for us when you’re not playing civilian.”

“Sorry Spangles, no can do. That is a rule reserved for heroes, because it sure didn’t make it into the Handbook of Villainy.”

Tony gave a throaty chuckle at his own witty retort and Steve couldn’t help but notice the signs all over again, recognize the pieces of Tony Stark that only fully emerged when the engineer was incased in one of his Iron Man armors. Right now, the villain laid very close under the surface of Tony’s psyche—possibly because he had surfaced from the mindset not too long ago—and the feeling of his presence alone was enough to set a part of Steve on high alert.

Captain America did have good reason to be wary whenever Iron Man was around, physical or otherwise, since the man was highly dangerous once he threw off the self-imposed limitations of his civilian role—he’d seriously injured all the members of the team more than once by now, all with alarming frequency in the two years they’d known him. Steve had found that there was an odd irony to waking up in a hospital bed to the sight of the worried-yet-unapologetic civilian persona of the villain who’d been the cause of your wounded state in the first place.

Yet, despite his ruthlessness when in a battle with the team, Tony Stark was very much a caring friend when he was not up to his supervillain shenanigans. It must count for something, in Steve’s private opinion, though he wouldn’t quite know what that was.

But then again, Tony “Iron Man” Stark was the kind of supervillain that nobody quite knew what to do with, whom refused to fit the regular mold of villain, and whom had even SHIELD tip-toeing around him in an effort to not set him off on a rampage all the while getting as much as they could out of being on semi-good terms with Tony’s civilian side for as long as it was still possible.

While Steve had been thinking, Tony had set off to—as the man himself had put it—‘do stuff’ in his workshop, giving the Avengers’ leader a vague wave with the hand still holding onto the glass as the elevator doors slit shut. Having the subject of his currents thoughts no longer in sight made Steve decide to put his musings away for the moment.

Tony would no doubt be back soon, ostensibly to gloat and preen and strut in front of the entirety of the Avengers and SHIELD’s support personnel—but Steve knew better by now. Tony was arguably more attached to their lives than they themselves were and these moments of reunion after having fought for the world to see was when Tony verified that they had all come back home, not necessarily intact or healthy, but alive and self-aware.

That, more than anything, made Steve think that there may be hope yet for the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just about this entire chapter was cobbled together by cannibalising my first draft of the prologue. I had written so much, only to not use the majority of it, and I thought it was such a waste if I left it at that. So, I have now managed to reuse some 80-90% of the text I hadn't already reused in the new prologue. The last bits will undoubtly at some point make their way into future chapters.  
> And because most of this was rearranging preexisting text, the next upload shouldn't take very long. ^_^ I've got the next part more than halfway done already.


	5. There's much we can’t explain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “No one but you got me feeling this way  
> There's so much we can't explain  
> Maybe we're helping each other escape  
> I'm with you”  
> – Jonas Blue & JP Cooper, _Perfect strangers_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay people, thanks for waiting. This chapter will introduce some more plot.  
> You might recall that I left you all hanging at the end of chapter 3, yes? Though not explicitly mentioned in the story, this part advances that storyline a little bit.
> 
> Also, before people start complaining, let me warn you all that I haven't seen or read any source material featuring Magneto, Mystique or Charles Xavier. All I have to go on are fanfiction characterisations and I know only the very basics of their backgrounds. Despite that, I hope that I managed to insert them in a believable way that's not too alien to the better-informed readers.

“Fancy meeting you here, Metal lover.”

Who else but Stark would invade a man’s hideout unannounced with such obnoxious good cheer? Eric Lehnsherr, better known by the name Magneto, felt the echoes of the upcoming headache already, and his unwanted guest hadn’t even shown himself yet.

“I really like what you’ve done to the place; it’s very homey.”

For the record, the Brotherhood of Mutants’ current hideout was anything but _homey_. Sufficient; yes. Well-hidden; yes. Secure; mostly—aside from Stark no-one else would be finding it anytime soon. Decent; yes. The aspect homey, however, would get a definite _no_ , a bloody cross instead of a checkmark on the list.

Erik didn’t even bother with formulating an answer and while he turned towards the entrance of the room—where Stark would presumably appear once the man was done being dramatic—the head of the Brotherhood remained seated at the polished metal table.

“Aww, so cold of you to ignore me like that. Really, I’ve been looking forward to meeting you—being the number one terrorist of the world and all. You’re on everybody’s hit list, you know, and almost guaranteed to be at the top of most of them.

I also happen to have visited some colleagues of yours while I was in Afghanistan, but I’m sorry to say that I felt obliged to leave a negative review on their site. The quality of their accommodation was substandard and though the hospitality was excellent, the overall experience was quite lacking. No gold star from me, but I was eventually persuaded to award them a lead star.

But anyway, don’t be a stranger, Mr. Metal.”

Erik couldn’t decide what was worse; being spoken to in such a mocking manner or being genuinely admired by someone as unpredictably dangerous as Tony Stark. That bastard could be the textbook definition of uncategorizable with how he managed to be a baseline human but possessed the kind of monstrous brainpower that put most mentally-oriented mutants to shame. Dear Charles had once managed to mention during one of their regular clashing of powers and ideals that listening in on Stark’s thoughts gave Charles and other telepaths horrible migraines. Erik didn’t envy that specific drawback of that particular gift, but he was also definitely not envious of having to deal with the likes of Stark with any sort of regularity.

It was exactly why he had always sent Raven (Mystique to the rest of the world) whenever they needed to have a word with Stark—leading to Erik never having had the _pleasure_ of truly meeting Tony Stark himself until now—no matter how imperfect that solution was. There was nobody else able to take over the negotiations, considering their great importance for the Brotherhood, because Erik really could not afford to lose his temper and subsequently try to pull Stark’s metal heart out in his fury. Anything remotely resembling such a disaster happening would only get ugly and would likely end with the fall of the Brotherhood itself—it was best not to chance it.

So, it was much better to have Raven Darkholme—his second, better known as Mystique—go, even if she didn’t quite know how to deal with Stark either. The fierce woman in question was actually fidgeting just that tiny bit where she was stood at his shoulder, which Erik politely pretended not to have noticed from the corner of his eye.

He remembered her telling him once, in the privacy of a very calm night, about her first time meeting Tony Stark, which turned out to have been several years before Erik had decided by necessity that having Raven deal with Stark was the safer option for all involved.

It had been in a bar somewhere far from the civilized world, and Raven hadn’t had any particular plans that day. She had just been spending her time people-watching and having a drink without any thought of the so-called ‘complicated things’ (her words) in her life. Her guise at the time had happened to be a female of around mid-thirty, which was why she had not been surprised when somebody had come up to flirt with her without so much as introducing himself.

Stark had, from what Erik understood, never rectified his lack of introduction during that unplanned exchange, busy as the man had been with flirting from the get-go all the way until Raven had painstakingly managed to lose him in a big crowd several hours later. That said, he had shown to be aware of the shapeshifter’s identity—as evidenced by the fact that he had greeted her by name only a handful of sentences into their one-sided ‘conversation’.

Before frustration had won from her pride and she’d taken off like a bat from hell Raven apparently hadn’t even been able to shake off the celebrity with the tried-and-true method of changing genders right in the middle of the conversation—Stark reportedly hadn’t missed a beat in changing tracks, and smoothly went from complimenting her curvy female figure to praising her new male form’s well-defined pecs.

Subsequent changes to a drag-queen, a teenager, an old man, a positively ancient woman and all sorts of in-between-gender people hadn’t worked either. The only kind of form that turned out to be off-limits was young children, because the playboy drew the line at ‘appearing to become a pedophile’, or so he had apparently said. But if there was one thing that Raven hated, it was being talked down to—which was one prominent result of using a child’s appearance—so that left her with nothing to use against Stark.

In the end, everything that had happened during that single encounter had led to the shapeshifter being thrown off her game to the point of acquiring an uncharacteristic meekness that kept rearing its head whenever the master of technology was nearby—although she was slowly getting better about it as the years passed. Even then, after hearing all of that, Erik maintained that between them Raven was the one better equipped to deal with the infamously unpredictable _genius billionaire playboy philanthropist_ , supervillain, weapons dealer and all-round person of mass destruction.

Erik’s estimation way back had been that Stark as a not-quite-run-of-the-mill civilian was lethal enough as it was. When the ‘evil-doing’ in the background got added several years later, it had only heightened the already high pitch of the metaphorical alarm that the instinctive part of his brain sounded every time Stark was mentioned. Becoming a shiny new supervillain came, in contrast to just about all the other cases the metal bender had ever heard about, with pretty much a guarantee that Stark would be _big_ , a much bigger figure than he’d already been in public.

It was at that moment that Stark actually stepped out of the shadows he’d been hiding in so far. Erik had known exactly were the insane visitor had been located from the very moment the businessman of destruction had first set foot into the general area—the inventor had too much metal on him and in him to escape this particular mutant’s notice—but it was nice to finally be able to see the man in all his well-dressed glory, Erik supposed.

What he wasn’t prepared for were the dozen or so other suited men and women accompanying Stark like well-trained bloodhounds. All of them made nary a sound when they stalked into the light and assumed typical guard poses. Their boss leisurely stepped up to the table and sat down opposite Erik without so much as a perfunctory motion that could be interpreted as asking the host for permission to sit.

Ignoring how his blood was already beginning to boil, the infamous terrorist Magneto took the time to carefully observe the man known as Iron Man and the people he’d brought with him. Meanwhile, Raven retreated more to the side in order to subtly encourage the rest of the room’s occupants to do so too. It was a lucky thing that none of the other members belonging to the Brotherhood of Mutants were present that day, although it probably wasn’t actually due to luck.

The most notable member of the group of ‘visitors’—aside from their eye-catching leader—was the strong man standing behind Stark, nearly appearing to hide in his boss’ shadow, with both hands holding on to the handles of a peculiar metal suitcase bedecked in the eye-catching Iron Man colors. While somewhat large and with his alert posture clearly signaling that he too had been trained to fight, even with the dark sunglasses hiding his eyes the guard somehow still gave off the air of being of a friendly sort.

Erik knew a thrusted minion when he saw one, and he was certain that out of all the people Stark had brought for his visit to the Brotherhood, that single bodyguard was the only one deemed important on a more personal level.

And maybe, just maybe Erik thought he knew who this seemingly unassuming man was.

Cobalt, the lieutenant serving under Iron Man, was known as someone who was never too far away from his boss. Because he was not often found in the foreground, this particular head minion had never been outright designated as a criminal, but Erik was certain of his theory that it was largely due to Cobalt that Iron Man had an impressive near-spotless record of clean getaways.

No matter how well-thought out or prepared beforehand, there was always some part of the plan that would go awry and even the best strategist would screw up at some point. That Iron Man’s already rare failures could never trip him up was nothing short of extraordinary, which only strengthened Erik’s impression that Stark must have managed to attract and win the loyalty of some very very capable people, and that Cobalt had to be among them.

A dull thump sounded as a large leather suitcase—regular brown fortunately, not that blinding color combination that Erik thought better suited for fireworks—was set down on the table by one of the faceless Stark minions. The weapons genius was still smiling the polite smile of a vicious businessman out to make a profit one way or another, which only served to set Erik on edge even more. The weapons dealer personally reached for the lock on the suitcase—as the case itself had been positioned facing its owner, there was no need for Stark to bend too far—and easily popped it open with a twist of his fingers.

“I have a little present with me today, Mags~” the younger man damn near whistled. “Just for you.”

This start of the unexpected meeting with Stark himself already proved the wisdom of the decision Erik had made those handful of years ago. The man was, in a word, infuriating. Every syllable that came out of that infamous mouth grated on Erik’s nerves like a pestle in a mortar, slowly grinding all composure and any self-control he had to dust.

It did not promise much of a good course for the very first conversation Erik would have with Stark in person without any sort of go-between to soften the blows coming from both sides. However, retreat was not an option, as the mutant was well aware of—Stark would pounce at the slightest hint of weakness and there was no reason to think he wouldn’t do it immediately.

Gritting his teeth, Erik did his best not to growl in growing irritation.

“Thank you for your gift,” came out with great difficulty, and the metal-oriented mutant even managed to sound like he meant it.

_See, Charles? I can be polite and diplomatic when the situation calls for it._

“Ah, ah, ah,” tutted Stark imperiously. “Don’t thank me too soon, Mags.”

With a flourish the now-open suitcase was made to turn a smooth 180 degrees on the metal surface it sat on, with a single finger resting on top functioning as the axis. Erik—and he was sure Raven too, despite her distance—was then greeted with the shine of polished metal alloys and expertly made components that made up a comprehensive whole.

Unsurprisingly, Stark’s gift consisted of custom weaponry that was undoubtedly as lethal as the man’s very sharp tongue and which would certainly be of superior quality than anything else out on any market to boot. The pair of weapons lying snugly, almost innocently, in their velvet-covered indentations were made of a curious mix of metals and other materials that had thrown Erik’s senses into just enough subtle confusion that he honestly hadn’t known what to expect from the contents of the case.

He was unwillingly impressed by that—not that he would ever say it out loud.

“And what does this cost us?” Raven suddenly remarked from over Erik’s shoulder, having approached without Erik noticing. “Mr. Stark, you can’t honestly expect us to believe that you’d be handing this sort of goods out for free?”

A true shark’s grin was his answer, and just about every hair of Erik’s stood up in its wake.

“Oh no, sweetheart,” Stark said with a voice full of a charming but annoying sort of amusement. “You needn’t worry your ever-changing head about it. _This_ —” and here the man caressed the leather of the case to indicate its contents “is nothing but a mere _token_ of goodwill and a show of appreciation for your _excellent_ patronage thus far.”

The case was closed again and with a seemingly careless hand Stark slid it over to the other side of the table, which was a clear gesture of handing over the suitcase and its contents to Erik and Raven.

Reluctantly, Erik accepted the case and lifted it off the table by its handle to put it down next to his chair. Raven, meanwhile, didn’t take her eyes off Stark and leaned a bit over the table to hint at crowding into the businessman’s space—making clear that she wouldn’t tolerate manipulations or lies from the baseline human.

“But?” she prompted. Stark let out a huff so tiny Erik was half-certain that he must have imagined it.

“I would appreciate some assistance, if you don’t mind.” The smile of their guest was a little more natural this time, although it was clear that the only humor to be found there was schadenfreude. Raven’s thunderous expression was apparently enough to make the notoriously difficult American elaborate without needing to go through the motions of asking and answering on repeat.

“I have found myself in need of some very _specialized_ information, if you will, and you are the best source that I know of to get at it.”

“Haven’t you asked Charles?” Erik couldn’t help but point out. “I know you’ve seen him recently, and he has the most contacts between the two of us.” There was no possible way that Erik could have missed how the world-wide underworld buzzed for days after the unexpected visit of Stark to Charles’ school. What the billionaire had been up to there was too much speculated about to be certain about which rumor was true, but Erik didn’t doubt for a moment that Stark hadn’t used the opportunity to speak with Charles already.

That Stark still went through the trouble of coming to the Brotherhood meant that Charles either wasn’t able or refused to provide the information that Stark wanted, which was an ominous sign. Erik and Charles may not see eye-to-eye on most things, but Erik had come to trust that Charles’ reaction was a good indicator of how benevolent or malevolent a given thing could be.

_This is bad and it’s going to get worse._

Not helping Stark was a dangerous gamble with great risk, and Erik couldn’t be certain of the consequences at this moment, but the odds were definitely _not_ in his favor. On the other hand, if he assisted Stark by providing the information—or supplying a contact that could get it—Erik may well secure the madman’s goodwill for some time to come, which meant better deals on equipment, intelligence and weapons in the future.

“That is unimportant. You two are the ones I’m asking right now.”

Stark’s piercing gaze pinned Erik into his seat, caught between the possibilities of agreeing or refusing and their results.

Raven was once again quicker than Erik in responding to the situation, and she had apparently already made a decision regarding what to do. Her voice was positively bone-chilling as she hissed out warnings that the information they were about to exchange had better not be used to hurt the Brotherhood’s cause. Stark eventually did make that promise, although Erik noticed that the man never explicitly stated _what_ , precisely, he promised to adhere to.

The information that the inventor had said he needed turned out to be of a surprising nature, and Erik was forced to admit that Stark had had the right idea to come to them. Charles might have been able to acquire the knowledge, but Erik thought that he could understand why the telepath had most probably declined to do so.

Stark later left their hideout with a satisfied air. Erik waited with sinking into his chair until he was absolutely sure that none of Stark’s people remained and his senses had verified that there were no sneakily hidden devices anywhere on the premises that Stark—or a third party—could’ve snuck in.

Raven followed his example and plopped down into a chair of her own, sighing tiredly and rubbing her fingers over her own forehead as if to stave off a massive headache.

“Is there any alcohol around?” she asked eventually.

“You know that I don’t drink,” Erik responded absentmindedly.

“That’s not what I asked. Do we have alcohol here? I’m not picky, but the stronger, the better.”

Erik just heaved a sigh of his own and honed in on the metal around him, scanning the combinations of type and quantity to isolate the spots that were small enough and of the right composition to be bottle screw caps.

“There should be some in the second storeroom, but I give no guarantees that they’re full.”

“Good enough,” Raven said, and promptly left for the second storeroom.

Erik felt very tempted to demand a bottle of his own as soon as she returned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EDIT: You all should have had no problem with figuring out who Cobalt is, but for the sake of keeping the mystery up until he is unveiled, I won't explicitly name him.  
> Choosing his code name was a tricky one. I didn't want anything lame or too dramatic, for that would not suit this character, but it left few characteristics that could serve as inspiration. 
> 
> In the end, I chose Cobalt for a number of reasons.  
> One; cobalt is a metal, which fits with Iron Man's theme.  
> Two; I always imagine a shade of blue to be this character's color--somewhere in the vicinity of cobalt blue.  
> Three; cobalt has the the same type of magnetic characteristics as iron and thus can said to be of the same 'family'.  
> Four; iron and cobalt are next to each other at no. 26 and 27 in the periodic system.
> 
> I'd love to hear your thoughs on my name choice, or anything else in this story for that matter.


End file.
